Google blocked over 2,500 YouTube channels for spreading misinformation

Google Threat Analysis Group specialists reported that they completed the work in the second quarter of 2020. As a result of this work, Google has blocked more than 2,500 YouTube channels for spreading disinformation.

The researchers talked about stopping attacks of governmental hackers and disinformation campaigns, some of which have been identified by experts from third-party companies (such as Graphika and FireEye).

The researchers write that they interrupted in the number of foreign cyber operations, which were backed by China, Russia, Iran and Tunisia. As a result, over 2,500 YouTube channels, multiple Adsense, Play Developer, and advertising accounts were blocked.

We recently reported that Fake SpaceX YouTube channels lured from users over $150,000, but today’s topic is more about politics than money.

Thus, 2,596 blocked channels were associated with disinformation campaigns, behind which were China, and 19 channels that Iran used for various influence operations.

“We terminated 19 YouTube channels, 1 advertising account and 1 AdSense account as part of our ongoing investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to Iran. The campaign was linked to the Iranian state-sponsored International Union of Virtual Media (IUVM) network, and posted content in Arabic related to the U.S. response to COVID-19 and content about Saudi-American relations. We received leads from FireEye and Graphika that supported us in this investigation”, — reported the researchers.

Additionally, Google Threat Analysis Group blocked 86 channels on YouTube, which were coordinated from Russia.

“We terminated 86 YouTube channels and 3 blogs and 1 AdSense accountas part of our ongoing investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to Russia. The campaign posted content in English and Russian about the EU, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the U.S. and about Russian and Syrian politics and the U.S. response to COVID-19”, — wrote Google Threat Analysis Group specialists.

It is reported that between April and June this year, Google managed to end ten coordinated foreign operations, some of which also affected Facebook and Twitter.

For example, analysts write that the Chinese intelligence services have mainly concentrated on downloading spam and non-political content, with very little interspersed political content in Chinese. Graphika is tracking these operations like a campaign called Spamouflage Dragon.

Russian operations, according to Google TAG, were built around the distribution of content, mainly about domestic Russian and international politics. At the same time, were noted campaigns for posting comments under various Russian-language videos.

Interestingly, recently attackers massively were stealing popular YouTube car channels.